While the tarsands get all the press, Albertans have another energy demon to face down. Our province is endowed, or cursed — depending on your perspective — with some of the biggest coal deposits in North America. It’s a primary reason why we have some of the lowest electricity rates in the world. But as a recent Pembina Institute report details, there are high costs for that cheap power.
And it seems we are in the dark, at least figuratively, about this dirty little secret. Surveys found that only one-third of Albertans realize we get almost three-quarters of our electricity from coal.
Alberta’s five big coal power plants are among Canada’s 10 largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters. At 43 megatonnes, coal-generated GHGs are marginally smaller than the 47 megatonnes emitted by the tarsands. We produce more GHGs per kilowatt-hour of electricity than any other province. For example, our per capita electricity GHG emissions are about 35 times those of Quebec.
In part it is the hand we were dealt. Emissions from B.C., Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland’s vast hydropower resources are a fraction of those emitted by burning coal. Yet other coal provinces are taking aggressive action, including Ontario, which is aiming to turn off coal by 2014.
While we may have “cheap” electricity, that artificially low price makes us energy hogs. Pembina refers to Alberta as Canada’s “energy efficiency laggard.” Why conserve when we pay so little?
Alberta is the only province without a renewable electricity policy. We allow the country’s best wind and solar resources to languish while others develop the energy technologies of the future.
Granted, TransAlta is Canada’s largest wind generator, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that it is foot-dragging when it comes to curbing GHG emissions from the burning of coal. TransAlta’s five largest Alberta facilities, generating about 4,100 megawatts, are all coal-fired. Its 11 wind facilities are its smallest plants, generating about 500 megawatts.
Today, coal is the fuel source for about 68 per cent of Alberta’s electricity. A decade ago it was 75 per cent. Right direction, woefully inadequate pace.
Click here to read the complete article by Professor Noel Keough in FFWD.